Tagged: john carpenter
Five Cool Horror Flicks to Watch Out for in 2014!
Good horror movies are hard to find these days and 2014 is looking a little slim in the way of quality fright flicks! But fear not! I have gotten together five cool movies that I think everyone should be watching out for this year. Seek these out instead of the next tired installment of Paranormal Activity!
1. The Station: “The crew of a remote weather research station in the German Alps find that a retreating glacier is turning the local wildlife into ravenous biological monstrosities, in this timely horror thriller from director Marvin Kren (Rammbock).”
This one has me pretty excited. It’s reminds me a bit of John Carpenter’s “The Thing” from the trailer and that’s always a good thing! There’s just not enough good monster movies out these days but this one looks like it might have the chops! Plus Marvin Kren’s first movie Rammbock was pretty damn good too!
2. Almost Human: “Mark Fisher disappeared from his home in a brilliant flash of blue light almost two years ago. His friend Seth Hampton was the last to see him alive. Now a string of grisly, violent murders leads Seth to believe that Mark is back, and something evil is inside of him.”
Sounds pretty rad to me, I’m a huge fan of alien movies and this one has a little bit of “Fire in the Sky” type feel to it mixed with classic 80’s style horror. I am excited alone just by the super radical movie poster!
3. Cooties: “A mysterious virus hits an isolated elementary school, transforming the kids into a feral swarm of mass savages. An unlikely hero must lead a motley band of teachers in the fight of their lives.”
It seems Elijah Wood has become quite the horror hound recently. I think that’s pretty awesome as Wood is a great actor and delivers some pretty quality films usually. Although this one is a zombie flick, which I must admit normally doesn’t really excite me anymore, it’s got a unique enough plot and strong enough cast to make this one a cult classic! Unfortunately there’s no trailer yet!
4. Sick Boy: “Sick Boy is about a babysitter (Skye McCole Bartusiak) hired to look after a young boy apparently suffering a strange illness—and things only become stranger once she arrives at the house.”
To me this one looks pretty damn freaky. Kids in horror movies are can be incredibly frightening and the thought of this weird ass sick kid in his room downstairs freaks me out. It’s looks like it’s going to be a great installment in the “babysitter’ horror genre. I think this one might already be available as it’s trailer was released back in 2011, so I’ll review this soon hopefully!
5. The Babadook: “A single mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battles with her son’s fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon discovers a sinister presence all around her.”
The Inspiration Behind “Big Trouble in Little China”!
It’s pretty much common fact this day and age that ‘Big Trouble in Little China’ is one of the coolest movies ever made. Anyone wanna disagree with me here? It pretty much stands alone as one of the best, most original movies that John Carpenter has ever done and defies any real genre. Carpenter must be a genius right?!
Most likely that’s true, but even genius minds get inspired to create awesome things often from some other source. Sometimes though these brilliant minds can unintentionally take full credit for something great. So I wanted to take a quick minute to address just what movie was indeed the inspiration behind ‘Big Trouble’. Ever heard of “Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain“? I didn’t think so!
This rad Hong Kong flick from from 1983 was indeed the inspiration for Carpenter’s masterpiece! John Carpenter has gone on record several times citing this movie as his inspiration for his 1986 feature film. Yep this little known special effects driven flick was what got Carpenter’s mind reelin’ to eventually compose “Big Trouble in Little China”. This one is an unknown gem, at least here in the United States where it’s extremely hard to find. Director Tsui Hark, who was attempting to break out a s a superstar, attempted to mix the kind of mythological adventures that were popular at the time, with a more Hollywood approach and more western stylized special effects work.
Even more impressive was that he brought in the people behind Star Wars for technical special effects assistance. Add in my favorite chinese actor Sammo Hung and you’ve got quite a stellar movie! So go check it for yourself but keep in mind that there was a remake (which wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as the original) and if you loved ‘Big Trouble’ eat your heart out with this one! Hong Kong cinema in the 1980’s was a ton of fun!
Here is the FULL movie uploaded to Youtube!!
Not Gangnam Style, LOPAN Style!
So Gangnam Style seems to be all the rage, I mean the video on youtube has like 550 million views! But here’s something that maybe one of the coolest “Styles” yet-LOPAN STYLE!! Check this shit out!
Is There an Alternate Version of “The Thing” 2011 Prequel?
I finally got around to watching “The Thing” 2011 prequel I have been trying to avoid for so long. The original 1982 movie of the same name is probably my favorite monster movie of all time! So giving this new movie a chance after hearing about how shitty it was really was a hard thing to do-but I decided to see for myself if the movie sucked as bad as the reviews suggested. My verdict? Yeah it was pretty damn sucky.
First of all this movie was really not much of a prequel. It was basically a remake that tried to do everything the original did but just ten times less impressive. Sure it linked at the end to the Carpenter version but overall this movie didn’t bring anything new to the table. The story was pretty bland, as were the characters even though the movie was pretty well shot and looked very similar to the original-all except for the special effects.
Now we all know that the 1982 version is really the king of practical monster effects. It still remains to this day as perhaps the most creepy and realistic looking effects on screen. The new version however looked as fake and pathetic as ever. Like something out of DOOM interacting with real people. But was it always meant to be that bad? I guess not. The movie originally boasted that no CGI would be used and from what I have read 80% of it was shot with bad ass practical monster effects. Then when the movie was show to the studio they were told the monsters were too slow and they needed the monsters to be jumping around more ect. So they had to go back and reshoot and mostly cover up the old effects with CGI to give it a more modern look. By modern it ended up getting a more fake video gamey look that the kids love so much today. Anyway I am curious-is there a version out there with the original effects?! How about releasing a special edition original cut version? Well here’s a little video that shows you some of the magic that could have been in the 2011 version…
The Trailer For “The Thing” Prequel Finally Arrives!!
Finally the brand spankin’ new trailer for the prequel to probably my favorite sci-f i / horror movie ever has arrived! The Thing (strangely named the same) will be arriving in theaters in October and from the looks of this new trailer it’s definitely on the right track! I have been a bit worried about it since I first heard of it being made as the 1982 Carpenter version is probably the best creature feature of all time using incredible puppetry and animatronics to make The Thing come alive.
Still today it’s effects are untouchable and I’m wondering how much of this new prequel will be straight cg? Only time will tell if this movie will truly have the inventive feel of the ’82 versions monster. The good news here is that from this trailer here you can see it so far fits nicely with the time period and vibe of Carpenter’s version-I’ve got my fingers crossed but we’ll just all just have to wait and see….
Universal Dork 